Warbird Information Exchange

Well, I finally got around to having three 8mm films converted to DVD. It's edited down to 4 minutes because most of the B&W stuff was so poor in quality. I won't go into a description here (it's on youtube) but, the Semper Fi folks at Camarillo will be happy to see the air-to-air of a glass-nose PBJ-1J with the radar installed on the right wingtip. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWog1GKzWcU&feature=youtu.be

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Cheers,

Craig

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Great stuff. I would love it if somebody could do a documentary of WWII USN/USMC patrol bombers. Did you notice the gunsight in the cockpit?

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“PMURT KCUF”

Alan,

I did indeed - hard to miss. I'm assuming these were for the nose and package guns. Do you have any idea if they also used the same sight for the rockets?

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Cheers,

Craig

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U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky HRS / CH-19 Helicopter Database
U.S. Coast Guard Sikorsky HO4S / HH-19 Helicopter Database

I would assume they were used for the rockets as well.

Cool video. I like the microphone hanging on the storm window handle.

The dial on the left side of the gun sight could adjust the deflection angle of the semi mirrored glass on the sight head. Higher angle (further down from horizontal) for dropping bombs and a lower angle for guns.

Low level bombing was called fixed angle bombing. At low levels the bomb would essentially fall and hit right below the aircraft so for a given type of bomb, altitude and airspeed there were tables to determine the dropping angle. Once the angle was set in the sight you would fly right over and when the target was centered in the cross hairs you would release the bomb.

Since the bomb would hit right under the aircraft the bomb could take down the dropping aircraft so they developed para frag bombs to slow the bomb down so the aircraft would be clear of the explosion.

Some of the sight heads had 4 adjustable stops so it could be set up for guns, different bombs and rockets all determined by the speed, altitude or the pilots preference.

The PBJ could also drop the ordnance and fire the rockets with the radar. The same theory and criteria applied even if you couldn't see the target. The radar was the perfect device for determining the angle between horizontal to the objective and when the blip hit the fixed dropping angle on the radar scope then the bombs or even rockets would be let loose.

They even had a device that the radar operator could set the ballistic information, airspeed and altitude and the whiz box would auto-magically drop the bombs or fire the rockets. Pretty impressive and the system was used as early as 1943 and all through the war.

Cool stuff.

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"Wow," is the word which comes to mind, Taigh. Thank you for the information. Your description of low level bombing brought to mind the link someone posted here a few months back showing the U.S. experimenting with skip bombing over water - and the one bomb which promptly skipped right back up into the aircraft.

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Cheers,

Craig

Facebook Groups:

U.S. Marine Corps Sikorsky HRS / CH-19 Helicopter Database
U.S. Coast Guard Sikorsky HO4S / HH-19 Helicopter Database